The Mercy Rule
In Romans 11:13-15, 28-32 God shows us The Mercy Rule: God loves everybody, and if he loves everybody then I know he loves me. Then I know that I can love my enemy and the person who is difficult to love too. August 10, 2008.
I knew I’d regret it but I looked at the scoreboard and it read Home Team 57 Visiting Team 19. The clock offered no compassion, ticking as slowly as it could with 7 minutes and 24 seconds remaining in the second half of an AAA basketball tournament game I was officiating. Basket after basket for the home team followed turnover after turnover by the visiting team. It was painful to watch, and even more painful to make calls against the losing team when I had to by rule. But one rule would save the day. The Mercy Rule. The mercy rule states that if a team is losing by 20 points or more in the second half of play the clock will keep running and it won’t pause when play stops, bring a more expeditious and friendly end to the game. The winning team extends mercy to the losing team as a gesture of compassion and sportsmanship, avoiding any type of intense defense or aggressive offense. Nobody stops playing, but the coaches and players understand there’s a rule in effect that gives new meaning to the game. The Mercy Rule.
In this section of Paul’s letter to the Romans he mentions special circumstances that help them and us marvel at God’s mercy rule. The gathering of believers in Rome included a larger number of Gentile Christians than Jewish Christians. However, the Jews enjoyed a larger influence in the church due to their prominence and leadership. This prompted a sometimes healthy and at other times unhealthy spirit of competition. It will help if we remember that in Old Testament times, God picked the Jewish nation of Israel out of all the nations to be his chosen people. They received five-star treatment from God like no other nation on the planet, as Paul explained earlier, “Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and,” most importantly, pay attention to this, “from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised” (Romans 9:4,5)!
God didn’t pick them, however, because they were better than everybody else. Why would God associate himself with people he had rescued from slavery, delivered across the Red Sea on dry ground, and provided daily food and water in the desert who then thanked him by grumbling and complaining, trying to replace him with a golden calf, and bowing down to the stone idols of heathen nations?
No, God had picked the Jewish nation of Israel for a different reason, and it has to do with you and me. In his mercy God wanted not just Israel but all people everywhere to be saved from their sins, and the best way to do that at that time was to highlight his mercy through a specially featured nation, Israel. The reality show drama of Israel’s struggles of slavery and deliverance from Pharoah was of prime time interest to the nations of the world. Israel’s promised land of Canaan was poised at the hub of the world at that time, and sandwiched in the middle of world powers and political turmoil, so that many foreigners would rub elbows with God’s mercy active in the life of this Jewish nation. Israel’s worship life, dietary laws, and civic regulations made the nation a peculiar one that gained Beijing-like world-wide attention spotlighted on the very God who was behind it all. God chose Israel as his launching pad of mercy for all nations and as the cradle of the coming Savior.
But years later when Jesus entered humanity many Jews didn’t want him! They didn’t want his mercy because they though they didn’t need his mercy! They were the nation, so they thought, that God had chosen because they were better than others. So they rejected Jesus by crucifying him. But God made that choice of terror by the Jews his act of mercy for disobedient sinners everywhere. That’s what Paul means when he writes about the Jews in this section of Romans, “Their rejection is the reconciliation of the world.” Just as they rejected Jesus, many Jews went on to reject the saving message of Jesus proclaimed by Paul and the apostles. On one occasion, the Bible reports, “Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’ Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door … and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized” (Acts 18:5-8). God’s mercy is for all. But anyone may refuse it. Bad for the Jews. Good for the Gentiles.
The AAU mercy rule includes a provision that is all-too often invoked by teams to their own hurt and shame. The coach of the team losing by 20 points can refuse to play by the mercy rule. That’s a challenge to the winning team that the losing team thinks it can compete, and often times the winning team then turns it on and the game gets ugly. God’s mercy rule includes a warning for us. Refuse it and things get ugly with God. Here’s how that might happen. God knows what’s going through our mind when we receive privileges that others in our position do not, and we say to ourselves, “God, I thank you that I’m not as bad as others.” You think your gold-medal performance has made you more worthy of God’s blessings? You’re refusing God’s mercy! God knows what’s going through our mind when we don’t find the need to pray about the simple things because, hey, we’re so skilled at taking care of them ourselves that we don’t need to beg for his help until the really big stuff comes along – in the mean time he can help the weaker folks who really need it. You think you’re so strong you don’t need his help? You’re refusing God’s mercy! God knows what’s going through our mind when we pull up to an intersection and we quickly close our windows and hit the lock button on the car doors because two teenagers wearing baggy pants, sports jerseys and crooked baseball caps are walking by – and they happen to be African American. You think that skin color predisposes certain ethnic groups to be less moral and other ethnic groups to be superior in some way? You’re refusing God’s mercy! Let Jesus’ blood of mercy forgive you, restore you, and make you more merciful to others. All others. Not just those who are convenient to love or easy to love, but all people. God expects nothing less. God gives nothing less.
The Jews as a nation had given up on God and refused his mercy, but God in his mercy refused to give up on them. That’s what Paul means when he tells the Gentiles, “As far as the gospel is concerned, [the Jews] are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” Centuries earlier God had called the Jews to be his special people when he made promises to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and there was no clause that would revoke God’s mercy. God keeps his promises, and he promises mercy for all who want it.
The Mercy Rule is God’s plan for disobedient sinners to know that our only hope is his endless mercy. Paul puts it this way, “God has bound all people over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” All. Without condition. Kristen Talbot won a spot on the U.S. speed skating team in the 1994 winter Olympics. To be an Olympic speed skater she had to stay on a rigid practice and training schedule; any interruption threatened her chance for a gold medal. Yet that’s exactly what Kristen did when, only weeks before she was scheduled to compete she donated bone marrow to her critically ill brother. During an interview she said skating and the Olympics are important, but not as important as helping others. She went on to compete in the Olympics and came home without a medal. That’s The Mercy Rule. Who needs your mercy? Make it more important.
God loves everybody, and if he loves everybody then I know he loves me. God loves everybody, and if he loves everybody – even my enemy, and even the person I find it difficult to love – then I know that I can love my enemy and the person who is difficult to love too. Have mercy on us, O God, and help us have mercy on others. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on August 10, 2008
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